SURPRISE!!!

I'm going to Romania! It'll be an unpaid internship through BYU volunteering at an orphange in the morning, and with the abandoned children in the hospital in the afternoons.

I'll only be there for 3 months (the policy for visitors to the country of Romania) and come back in April a few weeks before winter semester at BYU ends. Usually it's a small group of mostly girls- it looks like this winter it will be 5 girls. We'll live in communist block apartments in the large city in northeastern Russia called Iasi (pronounced Yash).

Child abandoning is really common in Romania. The country is still healing from the last communist regime, which ended only 24 years ago in 1989 under Nicolae Ceausescu. To build Romania's work force, he outlawed contraception, so way more children were conceived than the country than support, and many children were turned over to the state. Many women who knew they couldn't support another child tried desperately dangerous forms of abortion, often resulting in defects later in their children. My number one purpose won't be to change the system, but to love the kids and help them develop trust in an adult that actually cares about them- to resurrect the light of Christ they were born with. My second purpose is to work with them physically, emotionally, and cognitively, to start making the child development milestones they are all so behind on. Some kids 8 years old still don't know how to walk, because no one ever taught them- they've been in a crib their whole life. Part of the cultural immersion class is instruction from a special education lady who will teach us how to assess the children and start making plans for their treatment.

 Plus- the weekends will be fun. We can travel. Dracula's castle is in Bucharest, I think, and the train system is really cheap and the program directors have mapped out where all the safe hostels are so we can be safe when we travel on the weekends. I'll get to be there for Romanian Easter, which is apparently a huge deal for Romanian Orthodox Catholics, which is the predominant religion there. We'll attend the small branch there, and double the numbers of their members, and help them stay strong.


Every church lesson, every geography class, every trip to the TRC, every university devotional, every trip to the temple, every time I read my scriptures, or listen to a hymn, every time I see a child, everything seems to be saying the same thing to me: Go to Romania. It's amazing how strong and clear and distinct a message from God can come to you. I literally think about it all the time.

There are 75 at the orphanage and hundreds whose families abandon them at the hospital- all alone. A past intern said in one room there's 30 babies in separate cribs that just sit there all day. And even though you wouldn't think it- we're learning a lot about cognitive and physical child development in my human development class, and studies have shown that human interaction- physical contact and talking to adults are essential to helping children grow psychologically and cognitively. Without it- the kids can't walk, can't talk, aren't happy, don't know how to share or have friends. Studies have also shown that even limited interaction with a loving parent figure can have lasting positive affects.


I looked up statistics about European countries rate of natural increase, gross domestic product, Human development Index, percent of population living below $2/day, life expectancy, and under age 5 mortality rate. Spain consistently ranked with the best conditions, even higher than England and France, and Romania consistently tied with Macedonia ranking the worst. Crazy. That only makes me more sad for those children. Imagine not only being born into a terrible country with limited freedoms and opportunities, but not even having a mommy or a daddy to come help you when you cry or smile or play with you. In Human Development, we learned how by age 14, some of the children in the Romanian state orphanages who had lived with hundreds of other children their entire lives still did not know the meaning of the word “friend.” When asked, they would report if they had a sister or brother, but they did not have any friends. Another past intern said she went into a hospital room once and saw a kid that had been laying in his puke for 3 hours, even though the nurses were literally right outside his room in the hall playing computer games, and she cleaned him up. Horrible. I think every child deserves to have a mommy and daddy who love them and love each other.

At one university devotional in particular, I don't remember what the speaker spoke about, because a little boy with down syndrome was sitting in front of me, and I couldn't stop watching him. He was snuggling with his older brother, and then his mom came and he was snuggling with her and hi-fiving her the whole time. And to think there are kids like that- that don't have someone to snuggle with. No one to hi-five. Whenever I walk to dance class, I can hear the kids at the BYU preschool. In Romania, the children are left there, behind closed doors all day long, with no one to talk to them. I want so bad to become that charity that Moroni talks of- to literally do what Christ would do for those kids. This is my chance!

Now to learn the language! Luckily it's a TON like Spanish, so grammer and verb conjugation isn't completely foreign, and the latin roots are all the same, but it sounds like Russian, and I have a hard time with pronunciation.

This is what I want to do- be a mom to the mommy-less. Because I have been given much.... I too must give. And with children- this is just something I'm extremely passionate about. Being a wife and a mom- those are my greatest dreams. I guess I always thought I'd be a wife first, but I guess God had a better plan. I am so grateful. God is so good to me. I hope I can be good to His kiddos.